Anders Was Born

Anders Rigby Wilkinson was born on March 2nd at 1:09 AM.  He came at 37 1/2 weeks (4 days earlier than Alden) and he was a healthy size (7lbs 3oz), but unfortunately it seems that his lungs had not fully developed and they were filled with fluid when he was born. He struggled to clear on his own therefore, we had a longer hospital stay than we were expecting.  He needed some extra care and help breathing during his first week of life, but he is home now and doing wonderfully.  If you want to read more about our hospital visit then you can keep reading, if not feel free to just look at the pictures. =)

Anders: Day One

I was very grateful that my mom had come to town two days before I ended up needing to go to the hospital.  Both of my labors have been a little unique in the fact that I am not sure I am in labor.  I don't notice my contractions unless I am really paying attention at first and it is only for the last hour of labor that I really feel pain.  Yes, I am aware there are lots of women out there who probably hate me for this but I guess it is just the way my body works.  So, when I went to the hospital with my mom on Sunday night I wasn't sure I was in labor and they actually kept me in an observation room for over two hours before they finally admitted me because they weren't sure that I was in labor at first either.  By the time that they admitted me it was almost 10:30 PM and Anders ended up joining us by 1:09AM so we didn't have too long to wait.

My mom took pictures of me in the delivery room because it was massive and pretty nice. 

As soon as Anders was born I could tell something was not quite right with his breathing.  I hoped it was something that would quickly clear up on it's own, but that didn't end up happening.  I got to hold Anders for a minute after he was born and one more minute after they cleaned him up but then they had to take him away to the special care unit to be checked out.  I sent my mom with him but it was still really hard watching my ten minute old son being taken from the room and not knowing what was wrong and going to happen.  I was very grateful for cell phones so that my mom could call or text me and give me updates until I was able to go over to the nursery and see him for myself.

Me holding Anders right after he was born.

Anders getting all cleaned up.

This was me holding Anders right before they had to take him away to the nursery.

I got over to the nursery about an hour and a half after he was born and he was hooked up to monitors to measure his oxygen levels, heart rate, respiration rate and other things.  His oxygen levels kept dropping lower than the acceptable range and when you listened to him breathe it sounding like he was grunting which the nurse told me was Anders' way of trying to keep his lungs inflated.  They said he had fluid in his lungs and we just had to wait and see if he could clear it on his own.  It was really hard to watch him struggle so much to breathe.  I watched him for awhile and then my mom and I went to try and get some rest because there wasn't anything we could do for Anders' just then.  They just had to watch him and see if his oxygen levels improved within 4 hours and if they didn't he would be officially admitted to the special care nursery and put onto oxygen.

Anders in the nursery when they hooked him up to all the monitors.  The one on his wrist is the one measuring oxygen levels.

I went back to see Anders early the next morning and he was on oxygen.  He was still making grunting sounds as he tried to breathe and it was obvious he was still struggling.  They did a chest x-ray on him that showed the fluid in his lungs and also showed a small pneumothorax.  The nurses also ended up having to insert an IV line so that they could feed him through that because he was not able to eat on his own when he was struggling to breathe.  I think the hardest part for me was that there were no definite answers to what was going to happen or how long we would be in the hospital.  Even with the results from the x-ray the nurses told me we would still just have to wait and see how his little body coped with everything.  Obviously I just wanted Anders to get the care he needed but not knowing what to expect was hard for me.

During the first day in the hospital I spent my time going back and forth between my room and the nursery.  I would go to my room to eat and pump and then go back to the nursery to see Anders.  It was also really nice because my mom brought Alden over in the afternoon and I got to hang out with him in my room for a little while.  He was not allowed into the nursery to meet his little brother because it is cold and RSV season and so no one under 14 was allowed in.  Alden was okay just seeing Mom for a little bit and playing games on my tablet.  After my mom and Alden left to go home for the night I went back over to the nursery and that was when I got to hold Anders for the first extended amount of time since he was born.  I got to hold him for a little over an hour and it was amazing.  He was still hooked up to his oxygen and all his monitors and I could hear him grunting as he breathed but it was so nice to just hold my precious little boy in my arms.  Anders was so calm while I held him and his breathing seemed to stabilize a little which made me realize that he would be okay!

They put the purple heating pads on him when they were trying to find a good IV sight.  They ended up doing a scalp IV.

This was Alden coming to visit me.  It was so nice to see his happy face!

This was when I finally got to hold Anders again.  I was so happy to get to hold him!















When I finally left to go to bed that night he seemed stable on his oxygen and okay but apparently while I was sleeping he started having a really hard time breathing and was crying a lot around midnight.  They ended up having to do another x-ray of his lungs at that point and had to increase the oxygen to over 50%.  This was significant because the hospital we were at only had a level II special care nursery and if Anders started needing oxygen over 50% for long they would have to transfer him to the level III NICU at another hospital further from our house so that they could give him other treatments he might need.

To be continued...